"That was quite a show, Amon," Jeanne chuckled amusedly, her voice breaking the heavy, terrified silence that still hung over the rest of the room. She rested her chin in her palm, looking at his profile with an intensely interested smile. "I must say, I was thoroughly impressed by your bluff."
"Who said it was a bluff, Jeanne?" Amon asked calmly, his voice smooth and entirely unbothered as he relaxed backwards into his leather seat, not even bothering to look back at her. "I would have genuinely killed him if he had failed to apologise to Seraphina and me for insulting us."
Jeanne's amused smile faltered slightly, a flash of genuine surprise rippling through her eyes. "That is... unexpected," she noted, her tone shifting from playful to deeply curious as she studied his posture. "You really do not strike me as the type of person to react so violently over a petty, disrespectful remark, Amon."
"Well, now you know," Amon replied, his voice remaining completely calm, composed, and devoid of any hesitation.
"Is it because of Seraphina?" A sly, small grin slowly reappeared on Jeanne's face, her sharp eyes darting briefly toward the golden-eyed girl sitting right next to him.
"Yes," Amon answered without a single shred of reluctance, his tone firming up with an unshakeable, matter-of-fact certainty. "That lukewarm trash can dared to insult my friend, and I simply could not stand it."
Seraphina was completely, utterly silent. She hadn't expected Amon to threaten someone with literal murder just for disrespecting her, and what was even more bewildering was that he had openly, shamelessly stated he did it because he considered her his friend.
She knew that threatening someone with death was fundamentally wrong, but her heart was racing so wildly right now that it felt like it would burst straight out of her chest. Her cheeks burned a brilliant, radiant shade of bright red, and she quickly buried her face into her folded arms on the desk to hide her explosive embarrassment from the rest of the room.
At that exact moment, the heavy mahogany door of the chamber swung wide open, and Celestia Greenwood stepped inside, immediately commanding the room's remaining attention.
She possessed a tall, curvaceous, and commanding physique, draped flawlessly in a sharp black blazer over a crisp white polo shirt, paired with tailored long suit pants and immaculate white heels. Her long, vibrant blonde hair was tied back in a high ponytail, save for two elegant strands that perfectly framed her face. Despite her striking beauty, her features were set in a deeply cynical, cold expression, anchored by a pair of piercing, bottomless black eyes that exuded absolute professionalism and frigid authority.
"Everyone, quiet down," Celestia commanded, her voice cutting through the lingering tension like an icy blade. She stopped directly behind the central podium, sweeping her cold glare across the assembly of elite freshmen. "First, I congratulate you all on passing the rigorous entrance exam and joining the absolute elite of the elite."
She paused, her eyes lingering for a fraction of a second on the dishevelled, trembling Christopher before returning to the crowd.
"You all might currently be wondering why you were specifically ordered to assemble here at the House Representatives Room on your very first morning. The reason is quite simple." Celestia fluidly conjured a sleek, dark wand into her hand.
With a fluid, practised motion, the woman conjured a sleek, dark wand directly into her palm. With a single, sharp flick of her wrist, the space directly behind her fractured with magium, and four distinct, glowing magical insignias materialised out of thin air, floating brilliantly against the wall.
"The twenty of you will be systematically assigned to these four legendary houses... and from this moment forward, you will be acting as their official representatives."
The four floating insignias flared with distinct, dense elemental mana, each representing one of the academy's foundational pillars: the Red Phoenix, the Yellow Lion, the Purple Crow, and the Golden Dragon.
Before anyone could analyse the heraldry, the blonde professor executed another sharp, effortless flick of her wand. Space subtly warped over the tiered seating, and a heavy, uniquely patterned academic hat suddenly materialised directly on top of every single entrant's head.
The sudden, unprompted weight caused a wave of muffled confusion and bewilderment to ripple through the room, with several students reaching up to touch the unexpected headwear.
Amon merely tilted his blindfolded face slightly upward, his [Mad Mind] skill passively registering the diagnostic magium scanning his cognitive and spiritual wavelengths.
After a tense, silent moment, the hats vanished as quickly as they had arrived. Simultaneously, the massive magical insignias behind the podium erupted in a brilliant, cascading glow, the shifting light rapidly organising into four distinct lists of glowing text.
(Phoenix House) -> Calisto Castellano, Mia Wales, Levine Blanc, Natalia Stars, Jules Brighton
(Lion House) -> Jose Brown, Ross Thoumeax, Jocelyne Irvine, Auri Ames, Brianna Biblia
(Crow House) -> Jeanne Nova, Christopher Genius, Rose Vasquez, Vivienne Everford, Corvin Madl
(Dragon House) -> Amon Von Crown, Seraphina Nightfallen, Tia Denver, Lucy Halestone, Percy Pantalone
Amon stared at the glowing roster from behind his blindfold. A faint, knowing smirk played on his lips. "Dragon House. Fitting."
What caught his attention, however, was the strategic distribution. Calisto Castellano, the third-place ranker, had taken the vanguard of the Phoenix House. Ross Thoumeax anchored the Lions. His "competent rival," Jeanne Nova, had been placed as the crown jewel of the Crow House—hilariously alongside a still-trembling Christopher.
But the most significant placement was right next to his own name. Seraphina Nightfallen had been bound to the Golden Dragon alongside him.
Beside him, Seraphina slowly raised her head from the desk, her cheeks still sporting a lingering, faint red tint. As her golden eyes locked onto the glowing text of the Dragon House roster, a wave of profound relief and quiet happiness washed over her features. They weren't just classmates; they were officially faction allies.
Jeanne Nova leaned back in her chair, her eyes darting between Amon's name under the Dragon banner and her own under the Crow. The playful, competitive glint in her gaze burned brighter than ever. The lines had been drawn, and the game had officially begun.
. . .
The twenty elite entrants stood in a vast, sprawling open field on the edge of the academy grounds, the morning breeze rustling the tall grass. A few paces away, Professor Celestia stood with her arms crossed, her cold, calculating gaze sweeping over the freshmen.
"The purpose of gathering you all here is very simple," she spoke, her sharp, commanding voice easily carrying across the quiet field. "A Familiar Summoning."
"You all have exactly thirty minutes to summon a partner beast. The absolute baseline requirement to pass this evaluation is to manifest a B-Rank familiar, at least. Furthermore, this will serve as the first official competitive test between the House Representatives—meaning your final scores will be tallied as teams of five."
She finished her explanation with a crisp, fluid motion, conjuring her dark wand. With a minimal flick of her wrist, a massive, glowing magical clock materialised in the sky above the field, its hands ticking forward.
"Your time starts now."
With those definitive words, the quiet field instantly erupted into a flurry of activity. Every single entrant drew their wands, channelling their magium to meticulously carve glowing summoning circles into the earth.
Naturally, Amon was also busy constructing his own array. However, the geometric lines and ancient runes bleeding from his wand appeared drastically distinct, shimmering with a complex, dense multi-layered spatial lattice that bore no resemblance to a standard summoning blueprint.
"What kind of crazy summoning circle are ya makin' there, Crown?" Percy asked, glancing over.
Percy was a tall, fair-skinned, handsome guy with messy dark blue hair and sharp dark blue eyes. He possessed a noticeably slim but athletic, finely built physique that moved with easy grace. As a fellow representative of the Dragon House, he looked down at Amon's intricate groundwork with genuine, laid-back curiosity.
"Something pretty complicated," Amon replied lazily, his hand completely steady as his wand traced another flawless, glowing arc in the dirt.
"Hey, ya don't seem that sweaty about this at all," Percy remarked casually, flashing a relaxed grin. "I guess bein' sitting comfortably at the absolute top allows you to take things easy."
On the other hand, Seraphina was deep into drawing her own summoning circle; however, she was visibly struggling to maintain her focus. Amon's brazen actions and unfiltered words from earlier were still heavily clouding her mind, making her heart race erratically and causing her magium control to sway with every line she traced.
"Seraphina, you really need to focus," Lucy remarked from the side, noticing her teammate's fractured attention. "We're being graded as a unit, girl. We need to lock in some elite scores."
Lucy Halestone was a tall, fair-skinned, gorgeous girl with short, vibrant orange hair and sharp, graceful orange eyes. She possessed a notably well-endowed, curvaceous figure that carried itself with a natural, effortless elegance.
By this point, every single entrant's uniform had dynamically transformed to reflect their placement. Depending on their newly assigned houses, their tie colours had shifted, and a massive insignia had stitched itself onto the back of their robes. The golden dragon crest emblazoned on her back and the sleek golden tie wrapped neatly around her collar, matched Lucy's fiery aesthetic perfectly.
"O-Oh... I apologise..." Seraphina stammered, offering Lucy a deeply apologetic, flustered smile. "It's... just that a few unexpected things are clouding my mind right now..."
"Well, you can daydream about your boyfriend later. For now, we have an evaluation to absolute ace," Lucy chuckled, sending a playful, knowing wink her way.
The casual tease immediately shattered whatever composure Seraphina had left, turning her face a brilliant, violent shade of beet red as she frantically tried to look back down at her magic circle.
"Halestone, stop dilly-dallying around and complete your own groundwork. Seraphina will eventually regain her focus on her own," Amon spoke up, his voice cutting through the teasing tone without him even turning his head away from his complex magical lattice. "And stop actively manufacturing the wrong ideas. Sera and I are not dating."
"Heh, but I never explicitly said that the boyfriend in question was you, Amon~" Lucy teased, her smirk widening as she deftly twisted his defence.
Seraphina's brain completely short-circuited at Lucy's counter-attack. The sheer embarrassment was too much; she let out a tiny, helpless squeak and tried to practically dissolve into her golden-trimmed academic robes.
"You have witnessed Seraphina conversing with me almost exclusively since the moment you first saw her today," Amon explained calmly, his tone remaining flat and entirely analytical as his wand carved another flawless, glowing geometric node into the earth.
"Therefore, it is a basic logical deduction to conclude you were implying me when you utilised the term 'boyfriend'. "
"Aw, you caught me~" Lucy tapped her own temple, pulling a thoroughly silly, exaggerated expression of defeat. "It was a pretty good attempt at a setup, though. Can't blame a girl for trying."
"It would be profoundly beneficial for our cumulative house score if you focused that energy on your own magic circle instead," Amon countered, his blindfolded gaze glancing back over his shoulder at Lucy and Seraphina once before returning to his intricate array.
"Learn from Denver over there. She has not uttered a single syllable since Professor Celestia started the clock, and she is drawing her circle with absolute intent."
Tia Denver was a girl of fairly moderate height with beautiful looks and creamy-white skin. She had shimmering jet-black hair with a messy, wavy bob style, brown eyes that seemed to have lost their spark, and an hourglass figure.
She was completely focused on drawing her circle with perfect magium control. Her concentration of magium wasn't high, but the amount she had used was sufficient. Looking at her, it would not be a stretch to say that she had no idea of what was going on around her due to how focused she was.
Looking at Tia made both Lucy and Seraphina realise that they were running out of time, prompting them to focus back on their magic circles. Seraphina was calmer than before, thanks to Amon's concrete logic, but she felt a little disappointed. She didn't know why, but she decided not to pay attention to it.
{Quest: Prince Charming}
Main Quest: Prevent Seraphina Nightfallen from getting expelled.
Secondary Quest: Help her summon a powerful familiar.
Hidden Quest: ??? [Figure it out yourself]
Staring at the glowing, mocking text of the interface, a prominent vein visibly snapped onto Amon's forehead.
"I knew the system would throw a cheeky quest like this at me," he thought, his jaw tightening slightly.
In the original progression of the novel, this specific familiar summoning test was supposed to serve as a pivotal, foundational development point between Seraphina and his sister, Sophia. In that original timeline, Seraphina fails to manifest a familiar, prompting Professor Celestia to coldly fail her and declare her expulsion on the spot.
Sophia was supposed to intervene just in the nick of time, stepping forward to arrogance-check the professor, rewrite the structural errors in Seraphina's array, and save her academic career. That calculated rescue was meant to make Seraphina deeply grateful to Sophia, igniting a dangerous, unearned admiration—unaware of the deeply twisted, dark ulterior motives Sophia actually harboured behind her helpful facade.
But Amon had already completely derailed that script. His past actions had affected the plot to a point where Sophia's intervention was downright impossible.
Amon flicked his eyes up to the glowing clock in the sky. Exactly five minutes remained until the absolute end of the evaluation. Across the sprawling grass, the other house representatives had already begun channelling their active incantations, pillar after pillar of colored light erupting across the field as familiars began to manifest. Only he and Seraphina had yet to initiate their summons.
With practised, blinding speed, Amon flicked his wand, tracing the absolute final anchoring rune to complete his own hyper-complex magic lattice. Without sparing a single millisecond to admire his work, he pivoted smoothly and marched straight toward Seraphina's unstable circle.
"Sera, why haven't you summoned your familiar yet?" he asked, stepping directly up to her perimeter and looking down at her work with a perfectly composed, level expression.
"I-I am trying..." Seraphina stammered, her hands trembling slightly as she pointed her wand desperately at the flickering magic circle. "Nota Vocate!"
She shouted the structural incantation, but as the echoes of her voice died down, the array merely sputtered a dull, lifeless light before going completely dark. Nothing happened. Behind his crimson blindfold, Amon was already analysing the geometric layout of Seraphina's blueprint. Within a fraction of a second, he pinpointed the fundamental flaw.
"Time Desistance."
The moment the whisper left Amon's lips, a violent, invisible ripple expanded from his form. Instantly, the vibrant colours of the open field, the rushing wind, and the ticking countdown clock in the sky drained away entirely, leaving the pair locked in a stark, silent, monochromatic vacuum. The grass stopped swaying, the distant pillars of summoning light froze mid-air, and every other student became an unmoving statue. Time itself had completely ceased to flow.
Seraphina's golden eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock as she looked around the grey, frozen world. But what paralysed her even more was the sight of Amon casually dropping to one knee directly inside her array, his wand tracing rapid, glowing corrections over her lines.
"Your summoning circle possessed three distinct structural drawing flaws in its core magium-conduction channels, due to which you were mechanically unable to channel the summoning script," Amon explained smoothly, his hand moving with absolute, rhythmic precision. "I am forcefully rewriting the network for you because I have zero intention of watching you face an immediate academic expulsion on your very first day."
"Expel...?" Seraphina echoed, completely dumbfounded by the terrifying gravity of the word.
"Yes. Professor Celestia deliberately omitted any mention of a penalty during her briefing, but judging by her psychological profile and unyielding baseline metrics, she wouldn't hesitate for a second to expel any representative who fails to meet the B-Rank threshold," Amon clarified, his tone utterly casual as he continued to seamlessly realign her faulty arrays.
Seraphina could scarcely believe her own eyes or ears. The entire situation was moving entirely beyond her comprehension. Amon's actions simply didn't line up with any standard social logic she knew; she found herself constantly questioning why a genius of his unparalleled calibre would go to such extreme lengths for her. A normal, casual classmate wouldn't halt the flow of time itself just to save someone.
Yet Amon, who had calmly defined her as merely a "friend" minutes prior, was rewriting her destiny without a shred of hesitation. Her heart began racing uncontrollably against her ribs, her mind suffering a complete, sweet meltdown in the silence of the frozen vacuum.
Finally, after a minute of subjective time, Amon completed the structural overhaul. He stood up smoothly, dusting off his black robes as he looked down at the newly reinforced, hyper-dense golden array with a calm, satisfied smile.
"This updated framework should technically guarantee her the capacity to summon at least an A-Grade beast," Amon calculated internally. "But honestly, factoring in her absurd, hidden protagonist-level luck variables... she is probably going to pull out an S-Rank, or even a legendary SS-Rank entity." He turned his blindfolded face back to her to give the command, but paused, thoroughly confused by why her face was currently glowing a brilliant, radiant shade of deep crimson.
"Sera, I am going to disable the temporal suspension field now. The exact millisecond reality registers, execute your summon," he directed sharply.
Without waiting for her to stall, he flicked his wand. Instantly, the vibrant colours of the world violently snapped back into existence, the sound of the wind rushing back into their ears.
In that same millisecond, space folded around Amon, cleanly teleporting him back to his own designated magic circle several yards away. He was well aware of Celestia's sharp perception; he had no intention of letting the strict professor catch him tampering with another student's test matrix.